Agreed, flac lossless is better Lame encoded mp3. Indeed all my stuff is in FLAC for a network Squeezebox. Indeed the Squeezebox with flac sounds better than the original CD on a Sherwood CD-980 which is a fairly well regarded player.
However, the original question was for mp3. I know some portable players will play flac but its been a long time since I looked.
Considering that my ears are over 65 years old, I probably can't tell the difference anyway between a high bitrate Lame mp3 and a lossless flac recording. :-)
Alright, I give. In the context of mp3, LAME is pretty good. Though alt.preset.extreme is IMO the best quality one can wring out of an mp3.
It's amazing how much better the encoders have gotten in the past 5 years.